


Masked

by twilight_shades



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Accents, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Costumes, M/M, Major Character Injury, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilight_shades/pseuds/twilight_shades
Summary: A meeting at a costume party, followed by mistakes and misunderstandings.





	Masked

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Do not own. Complete fiction.

Arthur first meets Eames at a costume party of Mal’s. After she’d called and cajoled Arthur into attending, she’d vetoed his idea of a ‘20s gangster. He’d finally figured out that by dressing in suits, he didn’t get mistaken for a teenager and he’d been really enamored the pinstripe one he could have worn (and, okay, also the Tommy gun). Instead, he decided to surprise Mal and maybe Dom, too, who is sure to be there as her indulgent fiancé, though the party is all Mal. In the two months since Arthur’d seen them, he hadn’t cut his hair as he’d been planning (he’d let it grow a little wild after his discharge) and in the two weeks until the party, he’d cultivated a mustache and small, pointed goatee. He had gotten boots, a cape, a hat, a scabbard and sword, and yes, dammit, a musket, because that’s where the name Musketeer came from. He’d also decided to wear a simple mask, just a strip of cloth with eyeholes, though the hat already shadowed his eyes and the facial hair seemed to change the contours of his face.

Arthur can hear the party from a block away. He makes his way to the door and Dom, dressed as Freud (which is, frankly, a little disturbing), lets him in. Dom looks askance at him and Arthur realizes he doesn’t recognize him, so he goes with it. He pitches his voice a little higher and introduces himself, with the requisite French accent (because the Musketeers were fucking French), as Isaac de Portau, a friend of Mal’s. Dom waves him in and tells him Mal is in the living room. Arthur wanders over and snorts as he takes in her costume, a ‘20s gangster’s moll. She must have thought him too stubborn to pay attention to her veto. He can’t decide whether that’s a compliment or not. He shakes his head and goes to fetch something to drink.

Somehow, when they run into each other briefly, Mal doesn’t guess it’s him, probably at least partly because he usually speaks French with an American accent around her (mostly because of the look on her face the first time he’d done it). Arthur smiling to himself as he sips at his drink afterward.

“You look awfully pleased with yourself,” an English-accent voice behind him says.

Arthur turns around to find a man dressed up as a pirate with a peg leg. Arthur shrugs, “I am,” keeping up the accent ruse.

“Well, one should do what one can to _please_ oneself. Though sometimes someone else can also do the pleasing. John Silver, at your service,” the man says as he all but bats his eyes at Arthur.

Arthur is a little taken aback, but recovers. “Long John Silver, I presume.”

“You’re too kind.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “No matter how long a sailor’s line, not everything he casts for will be attracted.”

“Oh, we’re going to have such fun together. What did you say your name was?”

“I did not. Isaac de Portau,” Arthur says with a slight bow.

“Well, Monsieur Porthos, you must tell me all about your musket and how often you polish your sword.”

Despite his awful lines (and some are truly deplorable), Arthur does have fun. And when ‘Silver’ suggests they go to his hotel, Arthur, to his surprise, finds himself agreeing.

It ends up being an amazing night. The sex is very good (well, okay, amazing - hot and raw and stupor-inducing) and ‘Silver’ makes him laugh a few times. He seems genuinely fond of Arthur’s sense of humor and is fascinated by Arthur’s body, complimenting Arthur until he seems to sense how self-conscious it’s making Arthur. Then, as they wind down, he wraps himself around Arthur and they drift off to sleep. It’s a wonderful night, which makes it all the worse when he wakes alone the next morning, all of the other man’s stuff gone from the room. The disappointment, no, the _hurt_ is heavy with a side of shame, for thinking it meant more than it did. Arthur quickly dresses in his discarded costume and leaves the hotel with as much of his dignity as he can muster (so, not that much).

Mal calls just as he’s finished shaving off the mustache and beard and she’s very disappointed that he hadn’t come. He tells her that he stopped in and left early. She guesses he’d been the Scarlet Pimpernel that had showed up (he’s a little amused that part of the reason she thinks so is that the Pimpernel had had an execrable accent). He denies it, but she remains convinced. He almost tells her who he’d been dressed up as, but doesn’t really want to think about or talk about it with Mal, sure that she’ll get him to tell her everything once he starts talking. He finishes the conversation with her and then looks at himself in the mirror. He picks up the phone and makes a call for an appointment to get his hair cut.

~~~

Arthur is shocked when he walks into the little conference room behind Dom to meet the other team members and sees ‘Silver’ a couple of days after the party. Fortunately, he has learned to hide many emotional vulnerabilities behind a mask of stoicism and efficiency. ‘Silver’ is introduced as Eames and Arthur is sadly not surprised that Eames pretends not to know him. Arthur follows his lead, cloaking himself in professionalism. Then Eames feeds him a terrible line, flirting heavily, which confuses Arthur (and makes him hope, which confuses him further), but Eames stops, seeming to catch himself, and gives a sheepish apology. Arthur swallows, feeling sick (Eames is apparently a one and done sort of guy), and brushes it off.

Arthur never really gets any sort of true equanimity around Eames. Even when Eames isn’t being deliberately provocative (never flirting, not after that, but teasing, mocking, tapping, poking, really anything designed to irk), he’s a distraction, an irritant, an inaccessible splinter under the skin that can’t be ignored. Arthur holds himself more rigid around Eames, cooler and more aloof than he usually is.

~~~

Mal’s costume parties become an annual thing, though Arthur doesn’t ever go to another one. Mal tries to persuade him to go to the next one, but gets nowhere. In the run-up to the third one, she tries to get him to go by suggesting that Arthur maybe try to find someone else in a costume to be uninhibited with and Arthur doesn’t know what she reads on his face, but she stops and doesn’t ask again. It’s the day after the fourth one when he goes to the little workshop where they’re prepping for a job. He’s a little surprised to find Eames there as Arthur wasn’t expecting any of the team to be in until tomorrow.

Eames is alone in the half-light from the sun through the windows, looking contemplative. When he sees Arthur, he frowns and asks, “Have you ever found something really wonderful, so wonderful, in fact that you didn’t trust it?”

Arthur’s startled by the abrupt question. “No, not really,” he says slowly, thinking about how wonderful things had never lasted for him, gone before he could even think about distrusting them.

“I did, once. Made a rather stupid mistake, tried to go back, but it was gone. I’ve been looking for it ever since.”

“Maybe it’s time to let it go.”

“Perhaps.” Eames looks at him consideringly. “And perhaps it is time to take up other worthy pursuits.”

Arthur raises his eyebrows in question.

Eames shakes his head a little and smiles. “Never mind, love. Just thinking aloud.”

~~~

Over the next few days, it feels like Eames is always _right there_. Not quite in Arthur’s space, but almost. Eames is paying very close attention to everything Arthur says and does rather than the sort of careless consideration Eames usually gives Arthur. Then the awful lines start and Arthur can’t figure out what is going on. Maybe it’s been long enough that Eames wants to try again. Or maybe he just wants to confuse Arthur (he’s doing a bang up job).

The flirting continues on the next job, though Arthur does his best to disregard it. And the next job. Arthur is annoyed and Eames seems to get frustrated with him. Then Mal dies and everything is in chaos. Arthur follows Dom, not sure what else to do, not willing to lose another friend. But Dom doesn’t act like much of a friend and over the months that follow he becomes Cobb to Arthur, until finally only Arthur’s loyalty (to the Dom that was his friend, yes, but also to the Mal that Arthur remembered, the one that would want Arthur to find a way to get Cobb back to their kids) and sheer stubbornness are keeping him with Cobb.

Then there’s the inception. It’s a catastrophe. It works, but the whole thing is so slipshod (and, yes, Arthur bears some responsibility in that, though, really, finding out if someone’s mind is militarized these days is such a crapshoot since it’s not usually documented as that can defeat the purpose, which Cobb knows) and so dangerous, made even more so by Cobb himself.

~~~

Arthur is in his very nice hotel room alternating feeling intense relief with just feeling sort of empty. They pulled off inception, Cobb is with his kids, and nobody is dead or stuck in limbo. Arthur takes a long shower and then puts on some soft flannel sleep pants. There’s a knock on the door and he looks over to where he’s stashed a weapon. But before he can go grab it, Eames’ muffled voice calls through the door, “Just me, be a love and open the door.”

Arthur sighs, grabs a robe from the bathroom, and pulls it on before opening the door. “And what can I do for you, person who is not following protocol?”

Eames just stands there, staring at Arthur in the doorway, holding a bottle of champagne. 

Arthur feels abruptly self-conscious, dressed for bed, with his product-free hair curling up at the ends as it dries. He’s exposed, without the armor of a well-fitted suit and groomed hair. Arthur clears his throat.

Eames shakes himself out of his reverie. “I’ve never really been one for protocol. And really, why does protocol matter? We’ve pulled off the impossible and we should celebrate.”

Arthur studies him for a few seconds, mentally shrugs, and says, “Fine,” gesturing him into the room. 

Eames blinks, but hurries in. “Well, I must say I thought you would take quite a bit more convincing. Perhaps even threatening to serenade you in the hallway.”

“Glad I avoided that,” Arthur says dryly.

Eames laughs delightedly. “I know you aren’t the humorless killjoy I do so love to tease you about being, but it is honestly lovely to see you let down your hair, both figuratively and literally.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and goes to get drinking glasses.

~~~

Arthur is sort of tipsy. He feels a little giddy as he always does when he drinks champagne (he doesn’t do it often). Eames is sprawled across one of the beds, waxing philosophical about kicks. Arthur starts singing La Vie En Rose under his breath. Or maybe not so under his breath, he realizes as Eames stops talking and is looking at him with an odd expression.

“ _You_ ,” Eames says accusatorially.

“Me?” Arthur questions, perplexed.

“You, you- And I- All this time, it was- And you-“ Eames sputters out angrily.

Arthur is kind of alarmed by how incensed Eames looks. Then Eames is up, scooping up the jacket he’d discarded at some point and storming out of Arthur’s room. Arthur looks around the room blankly after Eames leaves and wonders what the hell just happened.

~~~

Arthur is very good at gathering information, not perfect, but very good. So he can fairly easily scope out any offered jobs to avoid working with anyone he doesn’t want to. And there are a lot of jobs offered - the dreamshare community thrives on information (gossip) and news of the inception quickly makes the rounds. Arthur really should have been doing this the whole time, but the thing is, well, Eames may be an ass, but he’s the best and Arthur will put up with a great deal to work with the best. And maybe Arthur needed the reminder, needed to remind himself what impulsive decisions lead to. So Arthur finds good teams to work with and if they aren’t the best, well maybe he can do with the challenge, maybe he can help make them better.

The next job is an intricate two-level dream with a huge hedge maze on one level and a cityscape maze on the other, the architect isn’t quite as good as Ariadne or Cobb, but really excels at mazes. The job goes very quickly and smoothly for all of it’s complexity and the team even gets a bonus from their client. He finds another job with another team pretty quickly after that. It’s a little bit of a strange one, with the mark, a woman with a chronic sleep disorder, already having trouble distinguishing dreams and reality. In the end, they get the information without ever having to go into a dream.

During the prep for his next job, Arthur feels like something is off. Eckert, the extractor, seems a little uneasy too. They talk about it after the rest of the team has retired for the night, but neither one can pinpoint the problem. Arthur goes back and rechecks the mark, then the client, and then the members of the team. He digs deep and finally comes across something that could be nothing. Their architect, Okma, and chemist, Galli, have known each other for a while and dropped out of sight at the same time, which doesn’t really mean anything, except they both apparently spent a few days in prison during that time and the records of that and why seem to have been deliberately obscured by someone paying a lot of money. It takes Arthur some time, but he finally finds a very tenuous connection to the mark… and the client. It’s a set-up, but Arthur can’t figure out what the purpose of it is until he stumbles across a name that pings with him, Emelia Herald.

Arthur and Eckert had both worked with Emelia, separately, years ago, though she had gone by the name Emerald. Emerald had died not that long after Arthur had worked with her and there were rumors at the time that she had killed herself. The mark and the client had been childhood friends with her. Arthur finds that three other people that had worked with Emerald had died in the last year (supposedly by a car accident, a mugging gone wrong, and an overdose, respectively). Arthur doesn’t know why now or why they think that her death had something to do with who she worked with in dreamsharing (it probably had something to do with the dreamsharing itself, as it had a tendency to bring underlying instabilities to the fore and even without that, continuously deliberately blurring the lines of one’s reality can be hazardous to one’s mental health), but they appear to be avenging her death.

Arthur meets up with Eckert at an old tech building slated for demolition and lets him know what is going on. They both decide to disappear, separately, and quietly spread the word to the rest of the dreamsharing community. Emerald hadn’t been in the business all that long, but there are still a few others she’d worked with out there. And, of course, there is the issue of Okma and Galli helping to set them up. As they’re getting ready make their exits, several men with guns burst through the door on the other side of the empty floor they’re on. They run. Several shots get fired at them but, fortunately, hitting a moving target is actually pretty difficult. Arthur is behind Eckert as he makes his way down the stairs. A bullet ricochets and grazes Arthur’s head, he flinches at the sudden pain and loses his balance, falling the rest of the way down the stairs.

Arthur lies there, not moving, stunned and with the breath knocked out of him. It feels like the blood from his head wound is running everywhere (it probably is, to his misfortune, he has first hand experience with just how much blood can come from a scalp laceration). Footsteps come thundering down the stairs and he lies as still as possible. Two sets keep going and one pauses and there’s a click, a camera phone maybe, then those footsteps leave too, chasing after Eckert, probably. If Eckert makes it, Arthur will have to send a bottle of wine or something. Arthur slowly pulls himself up and assesses his injuries. He pulls his tie off and presses it hard against his grazed head for a few minutes. He pretty banged up, going to bruise all over, maybe some cracked ribs too. He takes a couple of minutes before leaving to make it look like something heavy was dragged off through the bloodstain on the floor. He keeps out of sight on his way to where he’d stashed his stuff in preparation for leaving. When he gets there, he cleans up, changes clothes, finds a hat, and gets the hell out the country.

~~~

Arthur’s finally in one of his safe houses, well, this one is a loft apartment. He’s got stitches in his head which will probably throb mercilessly once the numbing of the local anesthetic wears off. He only has one cracked rib and five bruised ones. He has deep bruises, mostly on his left side, and he strained his right wrist. He picked up some pretty serious pain killers, which he is so looking forward to taking. First, though, he puts away the groceries he got, very aware that once he stops moving and actually lies down, getting up is going to be hard and going out with any sort of stealth, impossible. He changes into soft plaid flannel sleep pants and a faded green flannel button-down shirt and gets ice packs. He settles down on the couch and puts the ice packs on, groaning at the pressure on his tender bruises.

Arthur wakes up to someone pounding on the door. He tries to get up to reach for his gun on the coffee table, but stops when the pain hits. He pushes through it, grabs the gun, and climbs stiffly to his feet. He lurches a few steps toward the door.

“Arthur, answer the bloody door,” Eames yells through it.

Arthur sighs and looks at the door, still a few feet away, debating with himself.

“If you don’t open this door, I will, by God, knock it down,” Eames calls out.

Arthur shuffles to the door and opens it. Eames brushes past him into the apartment. Arthur closes and locks the door, then slowly makes his way back over to the couch as Eames paces and angrily rants. Arthur only starts paying attention to what Eames is saying once he lowers himself to the couch, distracted by the pain of moving. He puts his gun back on the coffee table.

“-thought you were _dead_. And you don’t even answer your damn phone and-“ Eames breaks off as he turns and gets a good look at Arthur. His eyes widen and he says, “You look awful.”

“ _I_ thought I was dead there for a few minutes. And I’m not really sure where my phone is. And if I look awful, then I look better than I feel.”

“Well, I’m still angry with you about the whole costume party thing, but-“

Arthur cuts him off, “ _You’re_ angry with _me_?”

“Yes, I-“

“ _You’re_ the one who _packed_ up and _left_. It was _your_ hotel room. Then when we saw each other, _you’re_ the one who pretended like we didn’t know each other and I followed your lead. I have been nothing but professional and you-“

“Wait, wait, I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t recognize you. I really didn’t, Arthur. I wasn’t pretending,” Eames cuts in. “And then when I realized, when you were singing, I thought you had known the whole time that I didn’t,” In a softer, sheepish tone, he says, “And I got angry.”

Arthur takes that in, rolls it over in his mind. “Get out,” he snaps.

“Arthur-“

“I don’t think you could make this worse if you try, but I’m not willing to risk it. I’m so forgettable that you don’t recognize me two days later, even though that mask came off. And you started to flirt with me and stopped. I thought it was because you’d already had sex with me, but no, that wasn’t it. I guess I just wasn’t interesting enough as myself. Then after years of not being interesting enough, suddenly you start flirting again. Then you get angry out of the blue, and for what? Even if I had known that you didn’t know, so what? You _left_. You left. And you can do it again, right now.”

“I thought you were French!” Eames blurts out.

Arthur stares at him.

“That mask may have come off, but not until well into the evening. And I think you’re underestimating how different you look with curls and facial hair. You weren’t forgettable, but you were unrecognizable. And you never dropped the accent. I knew I’d made a mistake leaving ten minutes after I left the hotel. No, I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I was out in the hall, but I couldn’t admit my cowardice to myself until I was ten minutes away. Then I turned around and came back, but you were gone. And when, two days later I met Arthur, well, you were lovely, in all your slicked-back, buttoned-down glory, and I stopped myself because of the man I met at that party, not because you weren’t interesting enough. I looked for him, Porthos, you. I went to Mal and Dom and pestered them for details, but they didn’t seem to know who you were. So I tracked down every French man of their acquaintance that could have possibly shown up at Mal’s party. Then for the next three years I showed up at her party looking for a French bloke with a neat mustache and goatee and long hair that curled at the ends. But you were never there. Do you remember the conversation we had, on the Serway job, after Mal’s party that year? I had to let it go, let that Frenchman go.”

Arthur squints at him. “ _I_ was the ‘other worthy pursuits’?”

Eames nods. “I really thought Porthos was French. You have an excellent accent. Up until that moment in the hotel after Fischer, I thought you spoke French with an American accent.”

Arthur shrugs a little. “I did that because it annoyed Mal so much. I don’t think she ever realized that I was affecting it,” he says with a small, sad smile.

Eames gives a little laugh, but then falls into solemnity, regarding Arthur for a few moments. “I know I did something stupid by leaving to set this whole business off, I do understand that and am very sorry for it. But after that, it was really all misunderstandings on top of misunderstandings. Do you think, perhaps, we could start again?”

Arthur put his hand up to rub at his forehead and winces as he catches the bruising around the graze.

“Or maybe you could get the sleep you probably desperately need and we could talk about it later when you’re not in pain and looking like you’ve been murdered and brought back from the dead,” Eames says with a lopsided smile.

“Later sounds like a good idea,” Arthur says, exhaustion rolling through him now that Eames has brought it up.

“Um, you do have a bed in here,” Eames says as Arthur starts to lie down on the couch.

“Yes,” Arthur says, looking across the loft, “but it’s all the way over there.”

“C’mon,” Eames says, gently hauling him to his feet. Eames gets him over to the bed, though it takes a while and gets him settled under the covers.

~~~

Eames stays, and for a couple of days, it’s okay. But that’s due to Arthur sleeping most of the time. Eames hovers. Arthur thinks he might be subconsciously trying to make up for things by being extra solicitous and it’s driving Arthur up the wall. So, when Eames is asleep, Arthur calls around (he had found his phone eventually, damaged, but the SIM card was salvageable and put into a new phone – there had been a lot of texts and messages and he’d sent out a mass text of ‘Not dead.’ in reply which got him a lot more messages and texts, much more vitriolic than the ones before). Arthur finds a job that Eames won’t be able to resist. Arthur just needs some time to himself, to heal and think about everything. Eames is excited about the job, but very hesitant about going, even after Arthur explains that he needs time alone. Finally, it clicks with Arthur what the problem is.

“You’re not _leaving_ , you know. I’m _sending_ you on a job, Mr. Eames, and I will expect you back when the job is over.”

That finally gets Eames to go, though he’s still a little reluctant. Arthur spends his time healing, remotely tangling up the mark and client in legal problems (he had found a way to concretely tie them to the overdose victim and sort of gently nudged authorities in their direction), and burning Okma and Galli’s reputations to the ground. After careful consideration, he ends up sending Eckert a first edition of _East of Eden_ , remembering an impassioned (and possibly drunk) speech about Steinbeck’s turn of phrase.

As for his injuries, some of the bruises are bone deep and take quite some time to heal. The scar left by the graze is fairly minimal and mostly covered by his hair and the small portion that extends beyond his hairline is not noticeable unless you specifically look for it and will fade even more with time. He can move easily and gets himself back into top form.

Arthur also thinks, about what Eames said, about misunderstandings and misinterpretations. He thinks back to the beginning and what he would’ve done if Eames had come back before he’d vacated the hotel room. He thinks he would have forgiven him. Then he mulls over everything else from the perspective of having all the information, fitting everything into this new paradigm. And he begins to get over his disappointment, hurt, and anger, with Eames, and with himself.

~~~

Arthur idly keeps track of where Eames is and so he knows when the job is winding up and when Eames gets on a plane to head back to Arthur. Eames calls Arthur to tell him that he’s back when he lands and Arthur tells him to come over and they can talk. Then Arthur gets ready.

He clothes himself in a black shirt, trousers and boots. He trims the thin mustache he’s been growing. He puts on a flowing Spanish cape, a black cowl domino mask and a flat-brimmed black hat. Finally, he adds a rapier to complete the costume just as someone starts to knock on the door.

Arthur opens the door to the loft with a flourish. “Welcome to my home,” he says with a perfect Spanish accent. “I am Señor Zorro, at your service.” Arthur bows.

Eames gapes at him. “Zorro?” he asks faintly, looking completely bewildered.

Arthur smiles then pulls off the hat and the mask. “I am actually not Spanish,” he says with his usual accent, “nor do I usually have a mustache. And I usually go by Arthur, Mr…”

Eames cocks his head at him, staring. After a moment, a bright smile lights up his face. “Eames. I must say, though your costume is quite dashing, I like it much better without the mask and I should think you’ll be lovely without the mustache. It is wonderful to meet you, Arthur.”

Arthur’s smile gets wider, glad that Eames understands what he’s trying to do. “Likewise, Mr. Eames.”

“Oh, just Eames,” Eames says as he finally comes in. “I really do adore that cape.”

And they talk. It’s not that they truly start over and leave all of their knowledge about each other behind. They just sort of reset their personal relationship, get to know each other in a different sense. And it works, even if they actually seem to argue more (though it’s lighter, less cutting). Arthur finds out that Eames is always overly solicitous when Arthur is sick and injured and though the leaving thing was part of Eames’ reluctance to go, some of it came from him wanting to take care of Arthur. Arthur learns to accept it, sort of, sometimes. But to atone for his exasperation and sullenness at Eames’ caretaking, every once in a great while, Arthur will dress up in a new costume and surprise Eames, to his great delight.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you find any typos or if the format is messed up or if you think I need any tags.


End file.
